For all our friends and relatives in France.
For those who were hurt, killed and those that have lost those they love.
For the perpetrators
And for those who will be targeted for revenge.

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
Not proud or demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born —
May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.

-- SN 1.8

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

"To reach beyond fear and danger we must sharpen and widen our vision. We have to pierce through the deceptions that lull us into a comfortable complacency, to take a straight look down into the depths of our existence, without turning away uneasily or running after distractions." -- Bhikkhu Bodhi

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." -- Heraclitus

I would like to also light e-candles for all those who have been experiencing over the past few days in Zimbabwean prisons what president Mugabe means by "full wrath of the law"; for the Turkish soldiers who have been or are being beaten to death in the streets or tortured in prisons; for all civilians and children who are considered collateral damage in air strikes in the Middle East; for all those who are being tortured in prisons around the world in China, North Korea, Syria, Ukraine and so many other countries; for all those who are probably still being used as human guinea pigs for testing biological or chemical weapons, or those who are still suffering the consequences of such experiments. The list has almost no end. Let's not forget them either.

I would like to also light e-candles for all those who have been experiencing over the past few days in Zimbabwean prisons what president Mugabe means by "full wrath of the law"; for the Turkish soldiers who have been or are being beaten to death in the streets or tortured in prisons; for all civilians and children who are considered collateral damage in air strikes in the Middle East; for all those who are being tortured in prisons around the world in China, North Korea, Syria, Ukraine and so many other countries; for all those who are probably still being used as human guinea pigs for testing biological or chemical weapons, or those who are still suffering the consequences of such experiments. The list has almost no end. Let's not forget them either.

Yes, the list is almost endless. The intention of this thread was to highlight what was going on at the time and to recollect the brahmaviharas. It was never to limit our attention to some at the exclusion of others.

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Ben wrote:The intention of this thread was to highlight what was going on at the time and to recollect the brahmaviharas. It was never to limit our attention to some at the exclusion of others.

I did not mean to condemn the message in the OP, empathy is always a good thing, I just wanted to highlight that we all (myself included) have a "natural" tendency to selective empathy, which we all need to constantly keep in check. I hope this can be viewed as a constructive remark despite its somewhat unskilful wording that may well sound judgemental.

I thought it could be worthwhile providing some context for the statement below, as I live myself not very far from Nice in a town that has a very large Muslim community, and I have seen this pattern arising in myself (in all kinds of cases, not specially with Muslims), despite constant practice, so that I regularly need to keep it in check, and my experience is that everyone else, even very advanced practitioners, has the same problem, though at varying intensity of course.

Buddha Vacana wrote:we all (myself included) have a "natural" tendency to selective empathy, which we all need to constantly keep in check

So here is the experiment I had in mind while writing the above (it starts at 36:10):